Yard Sale report
We had a yard sale. We made enough money to buy Redbones dinner for 10, plus have redbones for half a dozen packed lunches (and just enough more to replace our broken microwave). I think I enjoy having a yard sale as a way to interact with the neighbors more than I enjoy Halloween, so maybe we'll have one again next year or the year after. Also, having one on the weekend of Somerville Open Studios was Brilliant. I enjoyed getting to make lots of people happy, and getting lots of stuff out of my house. We pushed everyone's endurance, but I think it was worth it in the end. We had only two carloads of stuff to donate afterwards, and only one trash barrel of stuff that we needed to throw away.
My funniest interaction was the guy who found the two bags of sugar cereal in the free box. (I had brought the wrong kind that housemate didn't want, didn't get around to returning it, and didn't want to make a separate trip to a food pantry dropoff just to give them puffed sugar.) I said "Yay, the cereal is going away!" and he said "I win! My wife sent me out to buy cereal!"
We are now known as the geekiest yard sale ever because of the quantity of high-quality sff and geeky tshirts we were selling. (As I kept saying, it's not that this is the stuff we don't like, this is just the books we don't have enough room for.) We made one geeky teenager happy with books and conversation. eowyns made almost enough from selling her rejected pottery (she's rather particular about her handiwork) to pay for the gas she uses driving to and from pottery class (and more importantly got a lot of positive feedback for her product).
My faith in humanity is also pretty restored -- I dropped a $5 bill and then found it on the ground 20 minutes later. Also, we had a bag of free matchbox cars, and each family just took one or so per kid, so there were still more left for the next kids.
Our housemate A did a GREAT job of getting rid of stuff, so from that point alone the yard sale was a great thing. I am already feeling some of the lightness from getting rid of stuff; while I was decluttering the books I found Remnant Population -- a book I have wanted to reread for four years but been unable to find. Now I am excited to get new books and read more things.
I am having big thoughts about living with imperfect things. I feel like physical things around me are falling apart much too fast (in the recent past- stick blender, kitchenaid mixer, toaster oven, microwave, swiffer). I feel like I am constantly fighting with the people around me about making do with tools that are a little bit broken (I want to, they want to replace them.) This seems to multiple my feelings of doom about their disposability. I feel like my stuff at the yardsale was in much worse shape than other people's stuff. Why does my stuff wear out so much? What am I doing wrong?
My funniest interaction was the guy who found the two bags of sugar cereal in the free box. (I had brought the wrong kind that housemate didn't want, didn't get around to returning it, and didn't want to make a separate trip to a food pantry dropoff just to give them puffed sugar.) I said "Yay, the cereal is going away!" and he said "I win! My wife sent me out to buy cereal!"
We are now known as the geekiest yard sale ever because of the quantity of high-quality sff and geeky tshirts we were selling. (As I kept saying, it's not that this is the stuff we don't like, this is just the books we don't have enough room for.) We made one geeky teenager happy with books and conversation. eowyns made almost enough from selling her rejected pottery (she's rather particular about her handiwork) to pay for the gas she uses driving to and from pottery class (and more importantly got a lot of positive feedback for her product).
My faith in humanity is also pretty restored -- I dropped a $5 bill and then found it on the ground 20 minutes later. Also, we had a bag of free matchbox cars, and each family just took one or so per kid, so there were still more left for the next kids.
Our housemate A did a GREAT job of getting rid of stuff, so from that point alone the yard sale was a great thing. I am already feeling some of the lightness from getting rid of stuff; while I was decluttering the books I found Remnant Population -- a book I have wanted to reread for four years but been unable to find. Now I am excited to get new books and read more things.
I am having big thoughts about living with imperfect things. I feel like physical things around me are falling apart much too fast (in the recent past- stick blender, kitchenaid mixer, toaster oven, microwave, swiffer). I feel like I am constantly fighting with the people around me about making do with tools that are a little bit broken (I want to, they want to replace them.) This seems to multiple my feelings of doom about their disposability. I feel like my stuff at the yardsale was in much worse shape than other people's stuff. Why does my stuff wear out so much? What am I doing wrong?